Healthcare IT news in brief

Sandwell and West Birmingham in Cerner deal
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS trust has signed a £18.8 million deal with Cerner to provide an electronic patient record.

The EPR and associated service will be deployed at Midlands Metropolitan Hospital, with phase one going live by October next year.

Initially the new system will wrap around, rather than replace, the hospital’s existing iPM patient administration system, but the new contract gives the trust the option to switch to Cerner’s PAS later.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals is an integrated care organisation that covers a population of about 530,000 people and runs two hospitals and two intermediate care hubs.

It has a range of acute systems from iSoft, now owned by CSC, and uses TPP SystmOne in its community services.

Digital Health News first reported that that trust has picked Cerner as a preferred supplier in May, with trust planning eventually to use Cerner to replace not just its EPR, but wider IT infrastructure, a new patient portal, and interface with GP systems.

The trust was rated as ‘requiring improvement’ in its last CQC inspection in March 2015, with the report highlighting IT systems as “presenting issues for staff”.

GP2GP rolled out in Wales
Deployment of a system that allows GPs to digital transfer patient records among one another began in Wales this month. The GP2GP transfer should take place when a Welsh patient joins a new practice, transferring their record digital from their previous GP on the same day.

It replaces a paper-based system, that takes weeks to transfer records. GP2GP is being run by NHS Wales Informatics Service and the two GP computer system suppliers in Wales, Emis and InPS. All GPs should be on the system by November next year.

Medway picks new patient flow software
Medway NHS Foundation Trust have awarded a contract to system supplier Hospedia to deploy a new in-patient flow manager system. The trust will introduce both the ExtraMed In-Patient Flow Manager and Vital Signs & Nursing Assessments products, which allow clinicians to monitor and manage patient flow through virtual ward displays.

The acute trust in the East of England is currently in special measures, having been rated as inadequate in its last CQC inspection in January.
 

Poole Hospital signs £1.25 million deal with Xerox
Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has signed a five-year deal with Xerox for new printer services. In July, the trust installed 430 new printers, reducing the number of printers the trust uses. The trust has also installed Xerox’s FollowMe software to securely manage access to the new printers. Xerox claims the “streamlined” system will mean less paper, not more, saving the trust an estimated £200,000 a year.